


distant even when i'm close

by platinum_firebird



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Banter, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Original Character Death(s), Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25811995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/platinum_firebird/pseuds/platinum_firebird
Summary: Moden Canady and Edrison Peavey both made the jump over from the Empire to the First Order; both have stuck with it, through incompetence and falling standards, for nearly thirty years.Sometimes, it feels like no one else understands.
Relationships: Moden Canady/Edrison Peavey
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: Rare Pairs Exchange 2020





	distant even when i'm close

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inquisitor_tohru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/gifts).



> Your comment about these two bonding over their mutual hatred of millennials a.k.a. young FO officers was so funny, it stuck in my mind and spawned this!

This meeting was, in Captain Canady’s opinion, the most pointless occasion he’d ever been required to attend. Listening to his fellow officers in the First Order argue with each other was usually nothing more than a waste of time; even worse was allowing each of them an unspecified amount of time in which to hold forth about their personal views without interruption. It was little more than an exercise in futility.

Near thirty years in the First Order had given him ample time to master the art of appearing to be attentively taking notes on the speaker’s points, while in actuality he was working on something completely different. Not a skill he would have needed in the Empire, where anyone who produced as much meaningless blather in a briefing as Lieutenant Matiss would have earned himself a demerit at least; but it certainly was useful for completing paperwork.

Now, though, he opened a private messaging channel.

_FOC-MC: How much longer do you think we’ll have to suffer this torture?_

A message came back almost immediately.

_FOC-EP: You could always fake a heart attack._

_Ass,_ Canady thought, hiding a smile. Someone - and Canady had several suspicions as to who - had started a rumour several weeks ago that he had been making secret visits to the doctor for a problem with his heart. This type of rumour-mongering and political manoeuvring was at least familiar to Canady; no one would have admitted it openly, but this sort of thing had gone on in the Empire. It almost amused him to think that the sabotage of older officers his contemporaries in the Empire had whispered about was now happening to him.

_FOC-MC: You first, old man. It’s seven years you’ve got on me, as far as I recall._

_FOC-EP: As you know, I am the picture of health._

_FOC-MC: Indeed - maybe my rumours should centre around your drinking habit?_

_FOC-EP: As if I could develop an addiction to that swill the commissary calls whiskey._

_FOC-MC: Damn. I shall just have to think of some other way to undermine you, then._

_FOC-EP: If I am forced to attend any more of these, sheer boredom may do your work for you._

_FOC-MC: Maybe then I will finally have something to thank Hux-the-younger for, then._

Canady glanced down to the end of the table, where Hux sat, watching the current speaker with his usual affected boredom. He had been the one to call this meeting, for reasons Canady still hadn’t divined.

_FOC-EP: I could certainly think of several better ways to fill these officers’ time. Did you see the scores from the last strategic theory tests?_

_FOC-MC: I wish I could unsee them._

_FOC-EP: What these kids need is some actual field experience. See what it feels like to have a ship actually taking hits under you, rather than just what the simulator thinks it feels like._

Canady could hear the rest of what Peavey wanted to say, even though neither of them dared to put it down in words, not even on this secured channel that would be scrupulously wiped later. Neither of them had agreed with the decision to pull away from taking new territory in the Unknown Regions and focus on Starkiller base. But, given that was the direction favoured by Supreme Leader Snoke, they both knew it wasn’t something to be complained about lightly.

_FOC-MC: Agreed. Unluckily, I know you have sim training with the new lieutenants later today._

_FOC-EP: Don’t remind me. Do you want to have a ‘nightly review’ afterward?_

_FOC-MC: After today? I wouldn’t miss it._

/

Moden Canady’s entry into the First Order had been, as far as such things went, smooth sailing. On hearing the news of the Emperor’s death, he and the crew of the _Solicitude_ had joined up with a contingent of other Imperial ships, forming a battle group while they waited for orders. They’d had to move positions several times and fight off one group of New Republic ships, but in the end those orders had come; coordinates that had led them on an arduous, several month-long journey through the terrors of the Unknown Regions to a rendezvous with the _Eclipse_ and Grand Admiral Sloane. There, they had been welcomed into the new order.

Edrison Peavey’s journey had not been quite as smooth.

He still remembered - sometimes vividly, in nightmares - kneeling next to his dying captain as their Star Destroyer broke up around them, battered and eventually bested by a New Republic battle group. “Take the shuttle,” his captain had whispered. The man had taken a shine to Peavey the moment he’d first stepped aboard the Star Destroyer; he’d been a mentor of sorts ever since. “Find- you have to find Sloane. She’ll know- she’ll know…”

The breath had left his body soon after. Peavey had pushed down the panic, the pain; he’d run straight for the hangar bay where the captain’s personal, custom-built shuttle had been kept, taking the surviving bridge crew and a small group of stormtroopers with him.

‘Find Sloane’, while a clear goal, had not been an easy one to execute. Peavey and his team had chased whispers of her halfway across the galaxy, slowly being picked off one by one by pursuing Republic forces. At last, tired and battered and down to only five crew members including himself, Peavey had found Sloane and her fleet.

“You’ve come all the way from Kashyyyk?” Sloane asked, when he was brought before her.

“Yes, Admiral.”

“That’s quite the trek.”

Peavey had stood straighter and announced proudly, “I couldn’t abandon the Empire, Admiral!”

Sloane had given him one of her rare smiles, and allowed him and his four companions to join the crew of her ship.

If Edrison sometimes wondered whether he _should_ have abandoned the Empire, when he’d had the chance to do it-

Well. There was no point speculating about what-ifs now.

/

“End simulation,” Peavey said, not even trying to hide the deep disapproval in his voice.

The simulation pod on the floor below resumed it’s level position, and as Peavey and his aide descended the steps from the control room, several glum-faced lieutenants climbed out and lined up in front of the pod.

“I don’t think I need to elaborate,” Peavey said, biting off each word, “upon what a disaster that simulation was.”

Silence.

“Kaldi,” he snapped, “What did Yuer do wrong?”

Lieutenant Kaldi straightened. “She, er… didn’t have a backup plan when our starboard batteries were taken out, sir.”

“That’s true. But what could Yuer have done to ensure those batteries weren’t taken out in the first place? Ghau?”

The lieutenant in question blinked at him like a lothcat in a speeder’s headlights. “Um… I…”

“No?” Peavey said, his tone leaving the lieutenant in no doubt of his contempt. “What about you, Akad? It seems you know the answer.”

“She relied too heavily on the Destroyer’s armaments, sir. She should have launched our complement of TIEs.”

“At least _one_ of you grasped your lessons from the Academy,” Peavey said, nodding to Akad. He stepped up in front of Yuer, the lieutenant he’d had acting as captain, who was currently staring at her shoes. “Remember this lesson for next time, Lieutenant,” he said, his tone stern and cold. “Class; dismissed.”

The class filed out, and for once Peavey was too tired to tell them off for hurrying. He wanted to see the back of them as much as they wanted to get away from him.

“That’s the last class for today, sir,” his aide, Haden, said. “Only one message of import came through during the lesson; a message from General Hux about resource deployment.”

 _Probably allocating yet more resources to Starkiller_ , Peavey thought, resisting the urge to grasp his temples and stave off a headache. “I’ll have a look at it in my cabin, Haden. You’re released for the day.”

“Very good, sir. I shall see you tomorrow.”

Peavey nodded distantly, already moving in the direction of the door. Haden was one of the few new recruits to the First Order he actually appreciated; a man who knew how to do his job with startling efficiency, and more importantly, knew which things were important enough to trouble Peavey with, and which could be safely dealt with without his input. In this new world of arrogant, incompetently trained junior officers, he was a godsend.

The message from Hux was waiting on the terminal in his cabin, as promised, though he was surprised not to find a second message waiting on his personal comm. He and Canady were rarely in the same area at the same time, let alone on the same ship; they never usually passed up the opportunity to get together for what Canady called their ‘nightly reviews’. In truth, they were an excuse to get together, drink too much whiskey, and share their unvarnished opinions of all the events and people around them, in a space Peavey had scrupulously made sure was safe from prying eyes and ears.

If he’d wondered - hoped? - once, that such meetings would become more- well, that had not come to fruition, and as far as he could tell Canady had no interest in changing that. He knew that people did such things - secret liaisons and illicit, romantic meetings - and sometimes he wondered if his interest was in Canady himself, or if he was simply attracted by the allure of the forbidden. It wasn’t like he had much to compare to, either. His most serious relationship, in all his nearly sixty years of life, had been an arranged engagement with a ‘suitable girl’ picked out by his parents. He’d met her all of twice. He had no idea what had happened to her after the fall of the Empire; he hadn’t even thought to contact her until several months after they’d joined up with the _Eclipse_ in the Unknown Regions, and by then contact with the wider galaxy had been near-impossible.

_FOC-EP: Running late?_

He looked at the message for a second, before closing his personal comm and focusing on the message from Hux. It was, as expected, another missive telling him that resources once earmarked for the fleet would be swallowed by the all-consuming maw that was Starkiller. Rolling his eyes, Peavey closed the message. When he opened his personal comm again, he saw a reply was waiting for him.

_FOC-MC: There in a few. Need an extra bottle of whiskey._

Peavey grimaced, well able to agree with the sentiment - and when Canady finally turned up at his door, he took one look at him and said frankly, “Yes, you look like you need a whole bottle to yourself.”

“I imagine I do,” Canady said as he collapsed down on the couch. “Did you hear?”

“About what?” Peavey asked as he poured their glasses.

“Training accident,” Canady grunted, “Live fire gone wrong.”

“Was anyone seriously hurt?”

Canady didn’t answer for a moment, instead pressing the fingers of one hand against his eyes. “A few of the stormtroopers are in pretty bad shape. Only alive because of their armour.” He took a breath, and in a thicker voice said, “Endelon is dead.”

Peavey sucked in a hissed breath through his teeth. Lieutenant Endelon was one of the few junior officers Canady had been willing to openly praise; he had, Peavey thought, seen promising things in the young man. “What happened?” he asked, his voice soft.

“Another officer mistimed his grenade. A rookie mistake.” Canady sighed. “He’ll wash out, of course - but that doesn’t help Endelon, does it?”

For a moment, Peavey was tempted to reach out, to give physical comfort. A hand on the shoulder, a hand in his hand; maybe that was how it could start. Purely physical exertion, to take one’s mind off grief.

In the end, though, all he did was hand over the glass of whiskey.

“Thank you,” Canady said, “I may need many more before the night is over. Just fair warning.”

“Naturally,” Peavey said. In his mind’s eye, he could see the face of his old captain, grey and pale as the blood drained from his body. What Canady felt was from the other direction, losing his student instead of his mentor, but Peavey thought he could relate. “If I tell you about the abysmal simulation class I had today, will that take your mind off it?”

Canady managed to drag a half-smile up from somewhere. “Maybe. If nothing else, it might give me a laugh.”

It might, Peavey thought, as he composed himself to begin his story.

For now, that was all he could bring himself to give; words, rather than actions, were all he could force himself to send across the divide between them. Even this much, this closeness, the First Order would begrudge; but here, alone in this room, they could forget all about that.

Maybe, in time, they would forget other restraints, too. But not today. Today, the distance between them still yawned too wide.

“It began with designating Yuer as commanding officer; she had to have her turn, but I knew from the beginning it would be a catastrophe…”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
